Welcome back to our monthly exit velocity report! This edition will be using the Statcast data as always and looking at the biggest changes from April to May. Three hitters with some of the biggest changes on each side will be examined to see if their results match their batted ball output, and what owners should be doing with that information.

I’ve specifically looked at changes in fly ball and line drive exit velocity. All hitters considered had at least 30 batted balls in each month, and velocity data has been obtained from Baseball Savant on Wednesday, June 7.

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Risers

Ryan Schimpf (2B/3B – SD): 95.1 mph (+7.1 mph)
Flyball machine Schimpf has arguably the most extreme batted ball profile of any major leaguer, averaging almost 65% fly balls since making his debut last year, and that didn’t change from April to May. In fact, if anything, Schimpf’s peripherals got worse, as he walked less and struck out more.

The one thing he can do effectively with the bat is hit home runs, and that happened eight more times in May. There’s no doubt Schimpf has the power to hit 30-plus home runs, whether he’s averaging 88 or 95 mph exit velocity.

What this change is more reflective of is the inherent volatility with a player like Schimpf, for whom walks and strikeouts are making up almost 50% of his plate appearances. On a per-PA basis, Schimpf registers a batted ball less often than almost any MLB regular, making him prone to larger fluctuations on batted ball samples such as this.

If you only need power and you’re in an OBP league, you might just be able to stomach Schimpf’s utter lack of other production. If the Padres continue to work in Cory Spangenberg as often as they have recently, then only players in the deepest leagues will be able to warrant rostering Schimpf, however.

Jose Abreu (1B/DH – CWS): 96.6 mph (+6.4)
The White Sox first baseman has confounded fantasy owners over his three-plus seasons in the league, trending down in power over that stretch after a stellar 36-bomb rookie campaign. April looked like a continuation of that concerning trend, with just two home runs all month.

Then May came, and Abreu turned on the power, launching eight home runs and putting up a .377 wOBA for the month. The exit velocity data supported that surge, with 33 of his 51 FB/LD batted balls in May hit over 95mph, including all eight of those home runs.

That Abreu still has that kind of power is the good news. The bad news is he’s still on the White Sox, a team that hasn’t necessarily been quite as bad as many expected offensively.

However, they still rank as a bottom-10 club despite surprising (and quite possibly unsustainable) positive contributions from Avisail Garcia, Leury Garcia, and Yolmer (don’t call him Carlos) Sanchez. A hot May might just give you the value boost needed to sell Abreu for something worthwhile, but don’t do so because you think his skills are disappearing; they seem to be just fine.

Andrew McCutchen (OF – PIT): 97.0 mph (+6.3)
Speaking of trending downwards, McCutchen went from perennial first-round pick to questionable fourth-rounder in the space of just a couple of years as the Pirates star played through a series of injuries and left us wondering whether the talent to be an elite contributor would ever come back. April looked like more of the same, with a .244 average and three home runs hardly overwhelming, but this excellent jump in exit velocity for May looks like everything turned around for the 30-year-old. Well, it didn’t: somehow it got worse as McCutchen batted just .206, albeit with five home runs.

That might have created a great opportunity for buyers, as all the batted ball data, including this velocity bump and an increased line drive rate, suggests that McCutchen was hitting the ball much better in May yet it just kept finding gloves instead of falling for hits. Even the speed seems to have returned, with McCutchen going 5-for-6 on the basepaths, putting him one shy of his 2016 total already. There’s no guarantee the Pittsburgh outfielder will stay healthy, but his skills are better than his current career-worst line suggests, so try to use that to get a bargain before the results start to match.

Fallers

Cesar Hernandez (2B – PHI): 88.8 mph (-6.0)
Hernandez was one of the first month’s biggest surprises, with a .906 OPS after four doubles, two triples and four homers in April. He also had a .409 BABIP and an FB/LD exit velocity of 94.8, which was very respectable, but not close to the league’s top marks.

Sometimes regression works out almost exactly as you’d predict, as May saw Hernandez hit just one home run, a total of 10 flies or liners at 95 mph or more. Although a .623 OPS was probably too far in the other direction and isn’t a fair reflection of his talent, it’s much closer to what we might project going forwards.

For a player who never even hit five home runs in a minor league season, Hernandez has provided some impressive output, but he isn’t a power hitter. His April might be our best example so far this season of what almost any major leaguer can do with a pull-heavy fly ball approach, a bit of luck, and a few pitches to hit, and it wasn’t sustainable. As bad as May was compared to April, his overall line still looks fine, but if anyone did sour on him as a result of the slump, the playing time and speed should keep Hernandez valuable going forwards.

Corey Seager (SS – LAD): 90.8 mph (-6.0)
It’s been slow going for the NL Rookie of the Year since his stellar opening month. That is relative, of course – he’s still been walking a ton, but the impressive power output didn’t transfer to May, with his ISO dropping almost 100 points, from .231 to .133.

The Statcast data matches that slide, with that 6mph drop in FB/LD exit velocity and just 29.3% of those batted balls being hit over 95 mph, well down from 67.5% in April. Seager hasn’t barreled a ball since May 20th and had just three such batted balls in the entire month.

This is all likely to be much ado about nothing. Every player has streaks, and a slow fortnight shouldn’t worry us too much, especially when Seager’s still able to hit the ball hard: he’s just barely missed barreling a couple in June already.

Plus, his ground balls are being hit over 100 mph regularly, which isn’t ideal but does demonstrate that the hard contact hasn’t gone away. His other peripherals look great, including his improved patience and the fact that he’s chasing far fewer pitches outside the zone.

It’s hard to imagine anyone would be dissatisfied with a player posting a .382 OBP, but Seager’s one blemish for fantasy purposes is that he still does have just seven home runs. If that creates a solid buying opportunity, strike now before he goes on another streak as he did in April.

Eugenio Suarez (3B – CIN): 90.1 mph (-5.3)
The Reds have been splendid for fantasy owners so far this year. Suarez’s teammate Scott Schebler was featured in this report last month and continues to hit the ball very hard, but the third baseman hasn’t managed to sustain his hard contact success.

While Suarez’s exit velocity has dived, he still managed to provide the same number of home runs – five – in May as he did in April. In fact, almost all of his results on batted balls were similar; the difference was that he struck out in 26.3% of his PA, instead of 17%, dropping his batting average over 70 points. His May OPS was almost identical to his projected rest-of-season mark of .759.

Suarez probably isn’t the kind of powerful player who’s likely to impress with the Statcast data. His max exit velocities aren’t close to the top end of MLB hitters; he’s actually in the bottom half of the leaderboard with his 108.1mph max FB/LD EV.

Suarez also does something else which both hurts his average EV yet will help his batting average: he seems to be good at hitting soft line drives and low flies that fall in for hits, which look a little something like this. That’s also a good reminder that not every player’s profile will lend itself well to the average numbers. While it’s fun to see Miguel Sano’s ridiculously high average, players produce value with the bat in different ways, and average EV and launch angle don’t tell the whole story.

Whether the ability to dunk weak line drives over the infield is a repeatable skill to this extent remains to be seen, but he hit seven such singles in May alone. He’s also had some luck on the home runs; for instance, it helps when they bounce right off the top of the wall.

Even though Cincinnati is a great place to hit and he’ll likely get a few home runs, he wouldn’t in many parks, making the 30-homer pace look unrealistic. Nonetheless, it’s reasonable to expect Suarez to have a good OBP with 10-15 homers the rest of the way.

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Darius Austin is a correspondent at FantasyPros. For more from Darius, find his work at BP Wrigleyville, Friends with Fantasy Benefits, Banished to the Pen and Bat Flips & Nerds and follow him @DariusA64.